Darkfall
by Indoctrinated
Summary: When darkfall came, their world was no longer ruled by order and reason. Chaos and evil took their ancient thrones, ruling with their nightmarish creatures that existed only for the whims of their masters. Sequel to Transcendence.
1. Prologue: Enter The Smiths

A/N: As was promised, I have returned with a sequel. I hope this prologue is juicy enough to keep your teeth sunk into for a while because this is all I have that's written down for Darkfall. Essentially, that means the rest is still floating around in my head. I have the basic plot, characters, and all those fun little twists and turns arranged up there, but as is with every plan it's bound to go awry. I learned that lesson well with Transcendence. So, ah, don't expect any immediate updates, for all I know this could sit for a few weeks before I even start putting down the first real chapter. Of course, it'd be best if you've already read Transcendence once I get into the real meat of the story, but this bit could just as well stand alone.

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. I don't own Rose Tyler or the Doctor. I am not writing this story for profit, otherwise I'd be filthy rich, own a Ferrari Enzo, and be living in some faraway and exotic country instead of this godforsaken desert. I do, however, own Alex and Luke Smith. Mine. Hands off.

* * *

_It was dark outside, so very dark. No stars shone in the sky, no moon lit the heavily shadowed streets of a quiet town a few miles outside of London. Light dustings of snow fell from the heavens, and what little light escaped through windows of homes gave the blankets of snow a foreign luminescent glow. The streets were devoid of life, not even a passing stranger or a stray dog dared walk among the things of Night. They did not fear the loss of their own lives, they feared the loss of who they were, what they were; they were afraid of what they might do to the ones they loved. When darkfall came, their world was no longer ruled by order and reason. Chaos and evil took their ancient thrones, ruling with their servants of Night, hellish creatures that existed only for the pleasure of their masters, and – of course - to slake their thirst for blood._

_A deafening roar shook the deathly silent neighborhood. Families rushed to windows, eyes shifting from one quiet house to another. There. Number 27. The Smiths lived there, a family of four. The children were grown and had moved out by now, but Mr. John Smith and Mrs. Rose Smith still lived there, though they were quite taken to traveling the world for long periods of time, sometimes for months on end. It was unfortunate they had chosen tonight of all nights to return from one of their trips, most unfortunate. _

_The howl sounded again, this time accompanied by the distinct sound of shattering glass. Eyes focused on a shattered window that pointed out towards the street, then shifting to see a limp form crumpled near the edge of the snow covered sidewalk. The shape stirred slightly, and then slowly levered itself up. The figure swayed for a moment, as if about to collapse, and then stood tall, squaring shoulders and lifting its chin in preparation for what was to come. _

_Another scream, this one shriller and higher pitched with venomous rage and frustration, rent the air as a nightmarish creature appeared at the broken window. It was lupine in appearance, almost like a werewolf, but with distinctly human features. A long snout, patched with a heavy coat of coarse black hair, extended from a frighteningly human face with heavier brows and deeply sunk eyes that radiated with a disturbing amount of intelligence for something that looked so much like a primitive animal. Elongated arms terminated in oversized four-knuckled hands, each finger tipped with a razor sharp claw. It stood upright on two legs like a man, but its spine was more curved as it neared the impossibly broad shoulders, giving the hellish thing a stooped posture. Despite its size, the creature looked as if it could move as fast, maybe even faster, on four legs than it ever could on two._

_Surprisingly, the figure stood its ground, bellowing back at the monstrosity with a rage enough to surpass even the creature's. Just as everyone was sure that this thing of Night would leap from the window and tear the figure limb from limb with a sickening glee, a different kind of roar sounded, this one more mechanical and familiar in sound. A fine spray of dark droplets spewed from the creature and onto the pristine blanket of snow just outside the window. The roar sounded again, and this time the thing fell forward, slumping over the windowsill and impaling itself on broken shards of glass jutting upward from the window frame. Horrified eyes absorbed the gaping hole where the creature once had a back, now having been blown away by the buckshot of a twenty-gauge. Long lines of a dark, viscous liquid dripped down the side of the house, pooling on the faintly glowing snow._

_The figure still standing in the middle of the snowy street finally collapsed onto its knees, hands digging into eyes and cheeks, as if trying to strip the flesh from bone. A wailing, terrified sob was torn from its throat, slowly transforming into an agonized scream. It fell to the ground, convulsing and slobbering, the same tormented screech piercing the walls of every building in a several mile radius._

_No one reached for a phone to call the police, no one took up a weapon in defense, no one left the relative safety of their homes to help the trembling figure out on the freezing street. They had seen this happen too many times to bother in a futile pursuit. The paramedics and police would arrive too late, and anyone that attempted to help one of those things would find themselves joining their ranks. _

_The wielder of the shotgun sprinted from the house, ignoring the still dripping nightmarish thing, and to the side of the convulsing figure. A faint silhouette told the watchers that it was a woman. Mrs. Smith, they could only assume. That meant the brave outline that distracted the thing was Mr. Smith. The woman dropped the gun, fell to her knees and bent over the shuddering form. It took a few moments for the watching eyes to realizing what she was doing. She had kissed him. Just as he was going through the transformation, she had taken his head in her hands and kissed him fiercely on the lips. Then something happened no one thought possible. The convulsions stopped, the shivering stopped, and best of all, the screaming stopped. The man sat up and hungrily kissed her back._

_After awhile they stood, clutching to one another, afraid to let go. The watchers hovered uncertainly at their windows, suddenly feeling like they were intruding in on a private moment despite the fact that both people stood in the middle of a public street. As if on cue, the two people suddenly realized that they were being watched. They turned on the watchers with eyes that shined a brilliant gold, lighting the area around them for several feet with a warm, hazy glow._

_A chorus of howls sounded from the wooded hills located towards the south end of town, and the watchers knew what was coming. The Smiths might have managed to destroy one of the servants, but could they take out an entire pack of the blood-thirsty creatures. The watchers had seen enough blood shed to know what would happen in a scant few minutes. They turned from their windows and back to their dinner tables, back to their card games, back to their televisions and tried to act like everything was normal._

_Outside, the boom of the shotgun rattled windowpanes and broke icicles off roofs, the howlshrieksqueal of the things of Night piercing ears and hearts with a black, malignant terror. The fear spread like a cancer among this town, where it was only safe during the day and nights were spent awake and afraid of darkfall, each person wondering when it would be their turn, when Night would come to consume them and what it would do once it devoured them alive…_

_The watchers waited for the screams to come, the human screams of agony and terror, not the animal keening of hunger and primal need that had rapidly grown to a crescendo out on the street. They waited in front of televisions they didn't watch, over plates of food that turned to ash in their mouths. The screams never came. Slowly, tentatively, they crept back to their windows and saw light. Moonlight streamed from the sky and stars shined brightly in the heavens, but most radiant of all were the glowing people that stood amidst a battlefield of servants, unscathed. After a few moments, the radiance diminished, the moon fell behind a curtain of clouds, and the Smiths turned from the massacre that lay at their feet. _

_The remnant of unconverted citizens gazed in awe at these transcendental beings, but deep down in their hearts the fear still festered, because darkfall would come again, bringing with it new hordes of servants all too eager to do the bidding of their masters. They would come quickly, and in numbers so many that even the Smiths – who had, effectively, achieved the impossible by destroying even one – would fall to the onslaught. But there was still hope, just a sliver, just a fraction of a minute shard. There was hope, and hope is a dangerous thing…_


	2. Insanity Takes Hold

A/N: And now for the first real chapter. I could explain the prologue, but I think I'll leave it for y'all to figure out…eventually. :D

* * *

The Doctor snapped awake in an instant, his twin hearts thundering out a staccato rhythm against his chest and his breath coming in deep, gulping pants. Blood roared in his ears, and the incessant ringing of bells in his head was the only things that could be heard over the deafening double lub-dub of his heartbeat. His eyes raked the dark room around him, felt the walls closing in, saw the burning eyes of nameless terrors ensconced in the deep shadowed corners of the room. He whimpered – to his utter mortification and yet could not stop himself – and squeezed his eyes shut. He was terrified. Frightened, horrified. Scared like he hadn't been since his nightmares as a young boy nearly a millennia ago now. It was a dark, black terror that shook him to the core, so completely irrational that he should be able to reason it away but found himself unable to. Either unable or unwilling. Maybe he didn't want to uncover the source; maybe it was too evil, too vile to ever be confronted.

He was afraid, and what was worse than being terrified out his mind was that for all he tried, he couldn't explain why. Details of the dream escaped him. All he could recall was the impossible clarity and vividness that he had felt while dreaming it, and the dark all-consuming fear that now gnawed at the edges of his mind. _Couldn't explain. Just couldn't, wouldn't, not even if he tried._ His mind bit back at him as he prodded the spot where his hidden dream lay dormant and he recoiled. He was effectively locked out of the sanctity his own memories. Never before had he forgotten a dream, and now, strangely enough, this one was being deliberately kept from him _by his own mind_.

He opened his eyes after a moment and scanned the room. The walls were the normal size, and the shadows didn't cloak skulking demons. He sat up in bed, arms shaking as they levered him up. He felt cold, ice cold, as if the nightmare had frozen him stiff and yet his skin felt damp and feverish to the touch. All of his clothes had been sweated through; shirt, underwear, pants, all of it was completely soaked with the chilling sweats associated with intense nightmares. He ran a trembling hand through his hair; it was damp and greasy, hanging around his face in lifeless locks. It was combed away from his face nevertheless. It felt dirty and unclean against his skin.

His breathing still came deep, but slower now, and he still trembled from head to toe. After a moment of restless indecision, he threw back the covers, swung his legs out of the bed and onto the floor. His legs barely supported him as he staggered over to the bathroom at a snail's crawl pace. He gratefully took the support of the counter once he reached it, and then looked up into the mirror. The face that stared back at him was not his own, and suddenly he was certain he was still trapped in the nightmare. Panic rose in his throat and he felt knots tightening in the pit of his stomach.

It was only after he had already risen a fist in preparation to smash the mirror that he came to his senses and realized that the face staring back at him _was_ his own, but very unlike he had ever seen it. His complexion was pasty white with skin that had the appearance of melting wax; the whites of his eyes that should have been a pristine white were dark, so dark his whole eye appeared to be a solid obsidian black; his hair hung in lank shaggy locks, much longer than it had been when he had fallen asleep; deep purplish rings around his eyes gave him a sunken look and contrasted sharply with his pale, sallow skin. He looked as if he was only a skeleton with an ill-fitting, oversized skin stretched over the bony frame.

Cautiously, he touched the fingertips of his right hand to his cheek, and the flesh dissolved as if it was never there. He jerked the hand away, peering suspiciously at the patch of newly exposed skin. "The _hell?!_"

He touched the other side of his face and the waxy flesh melted away under his fingers. He glared back at himself with solid black eyes and defiantly cracked the tap of the faucet. Water gurgled into the sink. He spoke to himself again, "I've got to be insane. Only explanation. I'm completely bonkers, a rock solid nutter. Completely off my rocker."

He dipped his hands into the stream of water, scrubbing his face and combing it through his oily hair, muttering all the while, "Yep, buy me a nice new jacket, a strait one, zip me up in it – nice and snug – and cart me off to the nut house. Only place for a nutter like me. Nutters belong in the nut house. Fits. Nutters in the nut house, makes sense that does. Proper place for nuts; wonder what kind of nut I am…Cashew? Walnut? Peanut? Brazil nut? Almond? Bloody insane nut who talks to himself about _being_ a nut? Maybe they'll vacuum-pack me into a can of Planters…" Inside, he knew he was purposely avoiding the mirror. If he looked up at it and still saw a face that wasn't his, looked at himself with eyes that weren't his, he knew he would scream from a mouth that was not his own.

Eventually, he summoned the needed courage and looked up. One glance told him all he wanted to know as he released a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. The stranger's face had been washed away. He leaned against the counter, one hand scrubbing along the light stubble on his jaw from not yet having shaved. He poked and prodded and pinched and squeezed and squinted and scratched at his skin until he thought it might just up and walk right off his face by its own accord. Nothing moved, nothing dissolved away or transformed into something else. But he had _seen_ a face that was both his and not his at the same time. And now, even worse, he had nothing to prove it with. The flesh had simply dissolved.

"Yep, I'm absolutely 100 percent certified and most assuredly daft."

With a heavy sigh he turned away from the mirror and stepped out of the bathroom, clicking off the light as he went. He stripped out of his damp clothes and pulled on new ones. Face scrubbed clean and fresh, dry clothes made him feel almost like a new man. Almost. From out of the corner of his eye, the shadows stirred, weaving sinuous patterns against the wall. Before he could fully turn to investigate it, he shook himself, grumbling, "It's nothing. Nothing. Crazy people see things that aren't real all the time." He snatched his dirty clothes off the ground and tossed them impatiently into the hamper. What the hell was wrong with him? He turned back to the dresser and leaned against it, head hanging in defeat. _He_ – the Doctor – who had faced down countless adversaries; _he_, who had looked Death in the face and grinned; _he_, The Oncoming Storm, from whom Daleks trembled in fear; he, who lived in the nightmares of the scum of the universe was afraid of the dark. Angry with himself, he almost slammed the bureau drawer shut, but stayed his hand in time when he remembered Rose.

Before, when he was still in the throes of terror, he had completely forgotten about her. The Doctor turned and looked down, across the bed to where his wife, Rose, lay sleeping peacefully, her breath coming deep and slow, the rise and fall of her chest as predictable as the rising of the sun in the morning. His gaze instantly softened and the tension slowly drained out of his shoulders. He reached out to her for comfort, not with his hands, but with his mind. Her mere presence soothed his fears away.

She was dreaming about them. With a smug smile he pulled out of the dream, walked back across the room to his side of the bed and slipped back under the covers. He pulled her back against him, snugging them up like a pair of spoons in a drawer. The shadows still crept and crawled in the night, but he paid them no attention now. She sighed and turned unconsciously in his arms, burying her face against his neck.

Doubt still raged in his mind, shaking the bars of its iron prison, but love sang a louder song, and for just a few hours the Doctor forgot about the melting face and the skulking shadows.

* * *

At precisely five fifteen in the morning, annoyingly punctual as ever, an alarm clock buzzed, beeped, and whined its sleepers into wakefulness. The clock was forcibly ripped from the wall and thrown out the nearest window, where, upon coming in contact with the asphalt street, it shattered into hundreds of little pieces. Perhaps out of pure spite for its owner, the clock continued to beep. Thankfully, for both the clock and the owner, a mail truck swung around the corner and crushed the remaining life out of the machinery.

Back inside the house, a thoroughly grumpy Rose Tyler rolled deeper under the covers, a satisfied smirk on her lips. Beside her the Doctor swung his legs out of bed, hissing as his feet came in contact with the cold floor and grumbled to himself, "Ugh. Sixth alarm clock broken this month." He said to his wife, "C'mon, Rose. Can't sleep all day."

A muffled grunt escaped the tangled sheets and blankets. "Can too. Just you watch."

The Doctor chuckled and leaned over, peeling away the blankets layer-by-layer, and said the one thing he knew from many long years of experience would pull even the grumpiest Rose out of slumber. "If you sleep all day, then I'll never be able to give you a good morning kiss." His lips curled into a knowing grin as the pile of blankets exploded, a fully lucid Rose Tyler appearing in the middle of the disarray and pinning him back onto the mattress. The fierceness of her kiss stole the smile from his lips and the breath from his lungs.

With a laugh she pulled back, ruffled his already impossibly ruffled hair – permanent 'just-rolled-out-of-bed-head' she always called it – and replied, "Good morning, dear."

He grinned back. "Morning, Hun." He kissed her again; softer, lighter, teasing her with the possibility that he just might choose to eat his words and stay in bed all day – though sleeping would be near the bottom of the list of potential activities.

Rose snorted playfully and rolled off of him, swiping her robe off a nearby chair. She plucked her husband's robe from a hook near the bathroom door a tossed it to him. He deftly caught it and slipped his arms in, tightening the sash around his waist. The Doctor couldn't help but shake his head in amusement. Twenty-five years and not a thing had changed between them. Rose still flung her clothes on chairs and tables and wherever was handy; whereas the Doctor dutifully hung every shirt on a hanger, folded every pair of pants with a militaristic precision, and lined up each pair of shoes with an eye that demanded absolute linear perfection. Rose had once accused him of having OCD, and he had replied that it was merely a quirk. He distinctly remembered the sound her sardonic snorting reply. The Doctor still took his tea plain, Rose with two sugars and a dash of cream. Rose could still take him to the cleaners in a game of slapjack, but the Doctor had her bested in a fair match of Twister.

In fact, as far as he could tell, the only thing that had changed between them at all was the link that bonded them together. Absence makes the heart grow fond, some say, but adventure - when mixed with one part danger and two parts 'we're-about-to-be-incarcerated-and-then-likely-eaten-by-cannibals' - makes the heart grow strong.

After a moment of quiet contemplation, he ambled into the bathroom where Rose was already beginning her morning rituals. Brush teeth, shower, hair, makeup, clothes; and always precisely in the order. _OCD my arse_, he thought. He chuckled quietly to himself and snatched up his toothbrush, squeezing a measure of toothpaste onto the bristles. Rose shot him a strange glance. "You're using my toothpaste."

He turned to face her, eyebrows brushing his hairline and toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. He spoke around the implement, "We have separate toothpastes?"

She looked at him as if he had just drooled in reply. "Yes. You always leave the cap off the tube and it bothers me."

"Since when?" He pointed accusingly at her with his toothbrush. "And besides, you're the one who leaves it off."

She gaped at him, appalled. "Do not."

He grinned knowingly. "Do too.

"Do not."

"Do too."

"Do. Not."

He mimicked her: "Do. Too."

"Not."

"Too."

She tossed her toothbrush into the sink, grabbed and handful of his shirt in one fist and yanked him against her, hips colliding and chests zippering together. She breathed against his lips, "Oh. Sod it," and then kissed him hungrily. He caught on quickly and trapped her face in his cradling hands, a needy groan echoing from his mouth to hers. The fear from last night suddenly took over, and the grip of his hands suddenly became more possessive, more forceful; his kiss became more insistent, his entire body trembled uncontrollably. She kissed him one last time and then pulled back, sensing that something was horribly wrong. Her hands held his face still as she looked him over.

"Something's…different, something's wrong…" She kissed him again, softer this time, and looked into his eyes. "What is it?"

His head hung, chin resting against his chest. His shoulders heaved, and yet he stayed silent. She took hold of his chin, forced it up, and looked into a pair of eyes she had seen for nigh on twenty-five years. His eyes were haunted. "Doctor," she said one more time, "what is it? What's wrong?"

After a moment he spoke in a hushed whisper. "I dreamed last night."


	3. Life as Usual

A/N: Whew, writing this chapter sure was weird. I got the first page down in a matter of minutes almost immediately after posting the previous chapter. And then I didn't touch it again until this morning. My muse just hit a wall and couldn't get around it for nearly a month. Then it just up and decided to have, oh, I dunno how even to word something like this, an attack of like writing seizures or something. Anyways, it's up now. I probably won't have the next chapter for this ready for a few weeks, but the next part of Up on the Rooftop is almost ready for posting. Plus, I've got a new story – a one-shot I think – in the works, but it's yet to be titled. All, I'll tell you is it involves the quote "Where's the beautiful woman that's s'posed to be on my right arm?!"

* * *

Rose eyed him uneasily, still holding his face steady in her hands so that his eyes would meet hers. She replied slowly, "And that's a bad thing, yeah?"

Suddenly his melancholy mood disappeared and a smile leapt to his lips. "Question: if you're insane, but you're fully aware of it, are you still insane?"

It was a mask. She knew it, he knew it, and yet they didn't say anything. They let him keep his mask, because they knew it was the closest available defense. Rose shook her head, confused. "How does this have anything to do with you having a dream?"

He threw his hands into the air, grinning like a madman. "Everything!" He pulled out of her arms, turning to examine himself in the mirror. As he poked and prodded at his face, he explained, "Last night I had a dream. Horrible one, woke up scared out of my wits. Odd bit is I can't remember a bloody thing about it. 'Cept for the fear, I remember that very clearly. Haven't been that scared since I was a little kid. I've been lonely, angry, sad, furious, grumpy and about a million other emotions, but never so completely, utterly terrified as I was when I woke up last night."

He stopped his prodding and poking, instead leaning heavily against the countertop. Rose stepped in behind him, tucked her arms around him and met his eyes through the mirror. "I couldn't even think…couldn't rationalize. I _knew_ the fear was irrational. I knew it had no grounds to be based off. I should have been able to logically work my out of it. My mind wouldn't let me, it kept itself closed off, and every time I tried to approach, it fought me. When I tried to remember what my dream was about it retaliated like I've never even heard of before, much less have it actually happen to me." He slammed his fist against the counter in frustration.

"You can't even remember what the dream was about?" she replied, giving his midsection a reassuring squeeze, just to remind him that she was there for him; that he didn't have to fight this alone.

He shook his head, one hand reaching up to rest over her forearm. "The only thing that my mind let me remember was the fear." He chuckled bitterly. "You still have to hear the worst bit."

She said nothing, letting him take his time.

After awhile he found his voice, hesitantly stretching out the words, rolling them around in his mouth before he fully committed to saying them. What he said now would be very important once he had told the full story; he didn't want to believe that his mind was slipping from him, but up to now it seemed like the only logical answer. "I woke up afraid. I stayed in bed for – blimey, for all know it could have been hours, but it felt like only a few minutes. I got up and staggered to the bathroom. Thought maybe a little cold water on my face would help clear my head, and I could figure out the mess that was tangled up in my head. But then I looked up, and the face that looked back at me wasn't mine. Well, it wasn't mine and was mine at the same time. I honestly can't explain it. When I finally worked up the courage to touch it, the mask disappeared. I scrubbed the rest of it off my face, changed my clothes, and got back into bed." He smirked self-consciously. He hesitated, remembering the sinuous shadows that crawled at the corners of his vision. Even on top of the melting face and the nameless fear, even if he didn't already sound like a raving madman, he didn't want to make more of a fool out of himself by compounding it with things like living shadows.

Instantaneously – the exact moment he was debating whether or not to tell her – Rose knew he was hesitating. While another person might have assumed that was all there was to the story, Rose just instinctively knew there was more. Twenty-five years of marriage and two more years of traveling the universe as companions had solidified the bridge between their minds. They couldn't flat out lie to one another, but what they could do was simply withhold from telling the whole truth. Oftentimes, whichever one of them recognized that the other was telling only half of the truth simply left as that and was never brought up. Some semblances of privacy had to be kept in order to maintain a healthy relationship. But, when situations were dire, all of those rules were considered null and void. So, instead of just leaving it be, Rose spun him to face her and grasped him firmly by the shoulders. "What is it? What are you not telling me?"

He looked away, now knowing that he was backed into a corner. "When…when I first woke up, I saw something moving in the shadows. They went away after awhile. I figured it was a side effect of the dream. But then when I came back out of the bathroom, I saw them moving again. They would only move when I wasn't looking right at them – like they were alive and would _know_ when I could see them. The only way I could watch them was out of the corner of my eye." He stopped for a second, a pensive glare crossing his face. "It's strange."

"Why?"

He stared hard at the floor again before answering. "Because, well, when I was little – no more than sixteen or seventeen -"

Rose snickered, interrupting him. "What?" he blurted.

She quickly clamped a handle down on her rising laugh. "Oh, er, nothing. Just odd to have you refer to yourself as a child when you were seventeen years old."

He gave a world-weary sigh. "Gallifreyans mature far slower than humans, you should know this by now. A seventeen-year old Time Lord is basically equal to a seven-year old human. It's perfectly accep-" He sighed again, this time interrupted again by her laughter. "What now?"

She howled with laughter now, holding her sides. "I know, I know…I'm sorry. It's just odd…"

"Twenty-five years!" he bellowed. "Twenty-seven if you think about it! Almost three decades you've known me and you _still_ think it's weird?!"

She sighed resolutely, containing her laughter. She shrugged, "Old habits die hard I guess." She cleared her throat. "So…"

"Oh hell, where was I?" He paused. "Oh, yeah. Shadows. When I was little I used to have these nightmares about thing that lived in shadows. My parents used to come and sit with me, one in each corner of my room until I fell asleep, just to prove that there wasn't anything living in there. For months I still maintained if they left the things would crawl out of the shadows and eat me. I used to have horrible nightmares about those things. In fact, I haven't had a nightmare that scared me so badly about anything since I was that age – not even the Time War could frighten me as badly as I was last night."

She stared into his eyes for a long time before she spoke. "I know that you're not insane."

He leaned forward, leering, "Prove it."

"Well," she smirked back, "that's simple enough. If you're crazy then that means _I'm_ insane too. And there's just no way I'm a nutter."

He snapped his fingers at her. "That brings us full circle then. How can you _know_ that you aren't crazy? Crazy people are under the impression that they're just as sane as you and me." He shook his head. "Or not, but that's not the point. The point _is_ they don't know they are insane."

She shrugged. "Fair enough." Her fingers tapped a staccato rhythm on the marble countertop. "So…who do we know that isn't crazy that can tell us if we're prime candidates for the nuthouse or not?"

He shrugged back. "Luke and Alex?"

"Nope," she replied with a negative headshake, "they have our genes. They might be as bonkers as us."

"Well, let's see…Neighbors already think we're from a different planet so they're no help. Your Mum's in a different universe, though she's already got some kind of mental disorder. Mickey's just an idiot and he's in the same boat as Jackie. Jack's somewhere on the planet although we have no idea where. I've always suspected he's a but of a nutter too, though." He stared angrily at the tile floor. "Since when did we stop having sane friends?"

She giggled. "Since when _did_ we have sane friends?"

"Good point."

They were silent for awhile before the Doctor reached out and pulled Rose into a hug. "Might as well go on with life as normal then. Our co-workers might notice something a bit different." He held her tighter against him. "We'll figure this out, I promise."

"I know," Rose replied, holding him tighter too, "you're the Doctor. You'll fix it."

Inside, the Doctor thought, _I can fix wars, I can fix time rips, I can fix the entire universe; but can I fix myself? _Then he dismissed the pessimistic thought, and asked, "Well, to work as usual then. What time is it?"

Rose glanced at the watch strapped to her wrist. "A quarter past six."

The Doctor swore angrily and sprinted for the closet, yanking his favorite suit off a hanger. "What?" she called after him.

He poked his head back into the bathroom doorway. "I'm going to be late!"

* * *

The Doctor and Rose tried to raise their children as best as they saw fit. For them, who had lived a most unusual life as possible, that meant spending nine months on Earth – in Earth time – and a year in the TARDIS. Those nine months of Earth time were arranged around the school calendar, and while their TARDIS trips lasted a year of Earth time, they always made sure to be back on Earth at the end of the three remaining months of Earth time. Call it an extended summer vacation.

And so, in having to spend nine months in a row on Earth, living in an actual house, with an actual mortgage, and actual cars, the Doctor and Rose were forced to take actual jobs. Rose took to it like a fish to water, and quickly found a small department store that was looking for new employees. It wasn't long before she was promoted to manager. The Doctor, on the other hand, had a far harder time finding a steady job. It wasn't his superior intellect – that's usually what got him the job, or his work ethic – that's usually what kept the job for him as long as it did. No, it was just that after a few weeks, he would simply become bored with his job. After a few months of drifting from job to job, from computer technician to day laborer, the Doctor thought back, to his last adventure with Sarah Jane. He posed as a physics teacher, and, he recalled, he'd been quite a dab hand at it.

Just his luck, the Head of the English department at a local high school was retiring and the principal was desperate for a qualified teacher to replace him. This teacher had been particularly liked, and the students would not by any means be kind to his replacement. As a matter of fact, all the possible choices had already turned down the position just because of that. And so when the Doctor wandered into the office, spouting Shakespeare and Frost and Whitman left and right, telling the most amusing anecdotes about their personal lives and just bursting with so much electrifying enthusiasm, the principal realized that he'd have no trouble at all filling the hole the beloved teacher had left.

And so now, having held the position for seventeen solid years, the Doctor found himself writing a familiar quote on the chalk board: "To be, or not to be?" He put the chalk back down on the desk, dusted his hands off, and cast a surveying eye over his students. They were a bright young group this year. After a moment, he spoke, "To be, or not to be? That's what Shakespeare – the great bard himself – asks us. Well, he asks us that through Hamlet, but that's beside the point. Will you be, or will you not be – that is the question."

He grinned and leaned back against his desk, carefully stowing his glasses away in a breast pocket. "Whenever I think about that quote, I think about not just what I am, but also what I've done. Now, if you decide to look at it that way, the question becomes: Who among you will make a difference? Who among you will be special, who will be unique? Who will invent the best thing since sliced bread, who will save a life, who will _change_ a life? Who among you will change the world?"

A sea of faces stared back at him, eyes riveted on him, some hidden behind the lenses of glasses, some veiled by contacts, some concealed in the shadows of curtains of hair, some buried by layers of make-up. All hidden behind masks of one kind or another. He pointed to a young man in the front row. "You, Ben. What can you do to change the world?"

"I, ah, I don't know…" he stammered.

The Doctor pushed away from the desk, throwing an arm out towards Ben. "Sure you do. 'Course you know. What are you good at? What do you like? What are you _passionate_ about?" He rocked back on his heels, hands shoved in his pockets, awaiting an answer. Ben hesitated. The Doctor could see it with perfect clarity; the young man was embarrassed. He turned and addressed the class. "You all have something that you're passionate about. Something that you love, that you'll always love. It might be a person, it might be an object, it might be a job, it might be an action, it might be a sport, it might be a sound. But there's _something_ for every person." They remained quiet, still hesitating.

He shrugged. "All right, I'll go first. You want to know what I'm passionate about? The one thing I love more than anything else in the entire world?" He flashed a sly grin, jerking his head to indicate his left hand. "Besides my wife of course."

The class roared with laughter, they were warming up again. He knew what he was asking was very personal, but it was important for them to know this kind of thing about themselves, and to know they weren't alone. "I have this itch sometimes, this irritating tingle that's just waiting to be relieved. It's restlessness; I feel the need to move around and explore new things. I love traveling. I love seeing things that I've never seen before. I love getting lost in strange cities and meeting the people. I love eating the food that tastes so good it's practically orgasmic but then gives you the runs for a week." More howls of laughter. "I _love_ seeing things that continue to amaze me. For me, there's never an end to it. I'll never see it all. I think that's why I love it so much. There's no end point. 'Oh, looks like you've seen it all and done it all. Well, here's an award, off you run now, back to the rest of your life.' None of that, not for a traveler. There's always something _new_, something more fantastic and awe-inspiring and breathtaking than the last."

After a moment of silence, Ben sighed and twirled his pencil around his fingers. "Drawing. I like drawing, and I'm not half bad at it."

"Hmm…drawing. So, an artist," the Doctor mused aloud. "Artists touch people, make them think, make them wonder. They take all the things we see in our heads and make them real. They incite, they motivate, they imagine. Artists touch more people than most." He turned to look Ben in the eye. "Thank you."

"Now, anyone else want to share?" Silence. "Aw, c'mon, I won't bite." He considered what he said for a moment. "Well…not unless I'm provoked…or you have nachos and are unwilling to share. Then I can't be held responsible for my actions." Another chorus of nervous laughs. He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. "All right, c'mon. Let's hear it. I know you aren't a bunch of boring windbags that go to sleep every night at eight and think the height of fun is completing _The Times_' crossword in ink."

A girl in the back, Allison, raised a tentative hand. The Doctor beamed, and pointed at her, exclaiming, "Ah, yes, another sacrifice for our amusement. What say you, brave soul? How will you change the world?"

She giggled self-consciously, cleared her throat and said, "Ever since I was like four I've wanted to be a doctor."

The Doctor's eyebrows rose, and he leaned to one side while announcing in a stage whisper, "Uh-oh, we got one with a god complex." Allison flushed red as the room filled with snickers and giggles. The Doctor grinned reassuringly at her. "Nah, I'm just kidding. Out of all people and out of all jobs, doctors are probably the most important in the world. They heal, they console, they fix and patch up, they invent and examine and test. Without doctors the lot of us would be dead by age 30 or so. A simple common cold or the stomach flu could wipe out an entire nation without them and the vaccines they employ. 'Course if we're moving into that area of medicine, researchers and scientists become the important ones there. But on a daily basis, doctors touch hundreds of people." He grinned again at Allison, "Well, brave soul, seems you escaped our knife this time. Might not be so lucky next time 'round though."

"Anyone else willing to take a swing at it?"

A few raised their hands, then a few more. He pointed at a towheaded boy in the third row. "Yes, Eric, what can you do?"

"Mechanic!"

"Good," he replied, "you're welcome to come and change the oil in my car anytime you want extra credit." He pointed again, a petite redhead straining against the confines of her desk as she waved her hand eagerly in the air. "Yes, Sara. Is there something you'd like to share?" he commented sarcastically.

She laughed, replying, "Yeah, I want to be an English teacher, just like you Mr. Smith."

He gaped in over exaggeration. "You cheeky little brown-noser." He chuckled despite the comment. "Good answer though, top marks for you. Teachers wield an enormous amount of power to change the world with." The class stared back at him, skeptical. "Oh-ho-ho," he chortled, "doesn't look like you believe me…"

He stared hard back at them, one eyebrow raised at a challenging angle. "Tell me who you think has more influence than a teacher."

They overflowed with answers, one piling on top of another without time to discuss in between. "Policeman!"

"Prime Minister!"

"Engineer!"

"Fireman!"

"Nurse!"

"Pilot!"

"Soldier!"

"The Queen!"

The Doctor grinned at the last one, commenting, "Blimey, never thought about that before. God save the Queen, she's got more power over the world than all of us put together!" He waited a few minutes for the class to quiet down, and then continuing, "Well, all those professions you suggested _are_ world-changing. Firemen and police save people on a daily basis, soldiers and pilots protect our countries, the Prime Minister and the Queen change the way economy flows and how our country does business with others, but you're all missing one key element to it all. There's one thing that they all have in common…does anyone care to hazard a guess to what that thing is?"

After a moment's hesitation, one student answered, "They all went to school."

"Exactly!" The Doctor exclaimed, spreading his hands wide. "At some point in their lives, each of those kinds of people were influenced by one teacher or another. Teachers guide the minds of the young, the minds of the future. What today's teachers say changes the world of tomorrow. And, believe me when I tell you, the things I say now, whether you remember them in the coming years or not, they'll change who you are today, and then eventually, the future." He leaned back against his desk, folding his arms across his chest. "So, really, if you think about, just by talking I'm changing the world. Right here, right now, I'm making history just by talking to you lot." He grinned.

A shrill bell rang throughout the school, signaling the end of the period. The students reached for their notebooks and their bags, packing away things and drifting towards the door. The Doctor called after the students, "Go, my brainwashed minions. Go forth and change your world!" He snickered to himself, throwing papers and homework that awaited grading in his briefcase and snapping it shut.

He sighed. "Blimey, I'm a complete genius." He hefted his briefcase and swung it off the desk, swiping his ring of keys out of a drawer simultaneously. Just as he was turning around to switch off the banks of lights, a shadow under his desk moved. The bleak terror from last night barged through the walls of his mind again. His breathing came fast and shallow as beads of sweat popped on his forehead. He could feel the seething hatred rolling off the thing living in the shadows. He risked a glance behind him. The corridor was deserted. That was very unusual, school had just ended. Students should still be walking around out here. How long had he been standing here? The thing under his desk stirred impatiently. A clicking of venomous talons could almost be heard through the stifling silence.

Just as he was sure the creature beneath his desk would reveal itself, a hand fell onto his shoulder.


End file.
